Opinion
Column

Cornies: Funding feeds rural hunger for fibre optics

Gerry Marshall, left, Chatham-Kent Mayor Randy Hope, Ontario Infrastructure Minister Bob Chiarelli, federal Minister of Science, Innovation and Economic Development Navdeep Bains, Ontario Deputy Premier Deb Matthews, London North Centre MP Peter Fragiskatos, and London West MP Kate Young were among the politicians present at an announcement this week in London for a program to extend high speed Internet in rural Southwestern Ontario. Columnist Larry Cornies compares it to the creation of Highway 401. (HANK DANISZEWSKI, The London Free Press)

If the importance of a government announcement were measured by the number of politicians in attendance, then Tuesday’s announcement in London of $180 million in funding for an enhanced fibre optic network throughout rural Southwestern Ontario was a doozy.

There were MPs, MPPs, federal and provincial cabinet ministers, mayors, wardens — you name it. At least a dozen politicians wanted in on what was an important milestone for the Southwestern Ontario Integrated Fibre Technology (SWIFT) project.

With good reason. We’ll know with more certainty two or three decades from now, but there’s a good chance that the construction of a robust, widely distributed fibre optic network across the province now will be as important to Ontario’s economy as Highway 401 was in the 1950s and ’60s.

There already are pockets of robust fibre optic connectivity in Ontario’s Southwest. Parts of London, including Western University, have good access even if the city’s outer fringes near the county do not. The same holds true for Waterloo Region, for example. But many more rural areas are still stuck with late 1980s and 1990s technology.

The $281-million SWIFT project, spearheaded by the Western Ontario warden’s caucus in partnership with the city of Orillia, town of Caledon, Niagara Region, Grey Bruce Health Services, and Georgian College, with the support of local First Nations, aims to extend fibre optic broadband service to smaller communities across the region.

Derek Silva, production co-ordinator at London’s Olio Digital Labs, thinks this week’s announcement of $90 million in support from both of the federal and provincial governments, is a “huge step forward” for the region, because it will create infrastructure in rural areas where the big telecom companies, such as Bell and Rogers, choose not to go. The cost of labour and rights-of-way, let alone the fibre optic cable itself, simply don’t pay dividends quickly enough.

Building that infrastructure, Silva says, “is a very expensive and laborious process” that provides “very little financial impetus to connect places like Clinton or Seaforth or Chesley” to fibre optic backbones. Because they’re driven by quarterly and annual profits, the big telcos regard those rural connections as “an exercise in futility.”

Rural communities, however, are becoming increasingly hungry for access to fast, reliable broadband. Whether it’s a sprawling greenhouse operation in Leamington, an auto parts manufacturer in Exeter, a chicken producer in St. Marys or an architectural design studio in Welland, all have a growing demand for Internet connectivity that moves at light speed. Even students in rural school boards, let alone post-secondary institutions, are collaborating online, researching and uploading ever-increasing amounts of their work.

For example: Last year, Allan Thompson, the mayor of Caledon and a farmer, broke the spear on his corn planter. He went to his local John Deere dealership for a replacement part, but none was available at any of the six outlets in his region, nor at a depot in Grimsby. There were 80 sets, however, in a warehouse in Dallas.

With rain threatening and council business looming the following week, Thompson’s planting window was closing fast. He decided he’d order the part from the U.S., but needed a makeshift work-around for the time being. For an extra $80, John Deere’s plant in Moline, Ill., sent the part’s 3D specs to the implement dealer in Elmira. Broadband service there, however, was not robust enough to receive the file, so staff had to drive to Waterloo to download it, then have the temporary part manufactured, within hours, at a local machine shop.

That kind of intelligent parts manufacturing, in which data rides down a fibre optic cable to a local manufacturer — instead of heavy parts aboard trucks on a highway — is the future, says Thompson. Big companies like Magna, Case and Caterpillar are already riding that wave, he said, and is another reason the rural Ontario needs better broadband service.

Despite this week’s good news about federal and provincial investment in SWIFT, the funding plan isn’t perfect. The money will come from the joint Small Communities Fund, designed to assist communities with a population of less than 100,000.

The problem for Chatham-Kent Mayor Randy Hope is that the population of his one-tier municipality sits just above that threshold, meaning he can’t qualify and therefore cannot redirect the funds to places such as Blenheim or Wallaceburg. Hope is looking at the prospect of seeing a fibre optic line cut through or encircle his municipality without being able to connect his rural communities to it.

Nonetheless, Hope is enthusiastic about this week’s development and hopes eventually to find a solution.

It was a story that garnered big headlines this week — and deservedly so. The feds and the province managed to work across their silos. And the result will be important for the province’s economic future. We need more of that kind of co-operation.